AfD Could Become Largest Opposition Party in Germany; Catalonia Crackdown in Spain

German social mood is among the strongest in Europe, yet the anti-immigration populists are moving into the pole position for opposition against what could be a "grand coalition" between the center-right and center-left parties. When social mood has its next leg down, the centrist parties will collapse and the leading opposition parties will take power.

Meanwhile in Spain, where social mood is already negative, the secessionist movement in Catalnia is spiraling towards Exit.

But, as WolfStreet.com's Don Quijones points out Madrid’s crackdown on Catalonia is already having one major consequence, presumably unintended: many Catalans who were until recently staunchly opposed to the idea of national independence are now reconsidering their options.

A case in point: At last night’s demonstration, spread across multiple locations in Barcelona, were two friends of mine, one who is fanatically apolitical and the other who is a strong Catalan nationalist but who believes that independence would be a political and financial disaster for the region. It was their first ever political demonstration. If there is a vote on Oct-1, they will probably vote to secede.

The middle ground they and hundreds of thousands of others once occupied was obliterated yesterday when a judge in Barcelona ordered Spain’s militarized police force, the Civil Guard, to round up over a dozen Catalan officials in dawn raids. Many of them now face crushing daily fines of up to €12,000.

Catalans want a new constitution to replace the one adopted in 1978 following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco and a statute like the one in place in the northern Basque Country which collects its own taxes and contributes little to Spain's central coffers, Bartomeus said.

Juan Montades, a political scientist at the University of Granada, said that if the rules are changed, Andalusia, Spain's most populous region which benefits from the redistribution of wealth from Catalonia, has warned that it would "be in the front line to defend its interests."

The battle in Spain is strong because Catalonia is wealthy. It is more leftist than the rest of Spain. It also has a long and unique regional history, including local dialect. The last part is the most important for most secessionist movements.

Meanwhile in America, getting a raw deal (or seeing that the future is set) is enough to propel separatist movements such as the American Revolution and Confederacy in 1861. American secession seems laughable with social mood at a bear market peak, but #CalExit is getting off the ground. Many residents in California are foreigners, recent immigrants from all over the world, but mostly from South and Central America. This doesn't create ethnic unity, but it adds a layer of ethnic separation from the rest of the country on top of political and economic issues.

Furthermore, blue states such as California are the strongest opponents of secession and devolution of powers favored by red states. Both left and right will see themselves as winners if California leaves. Although negative social mood and hateful rhetoric will fuel a separation, it is more likely to be amicable given the political background. The risk is that other blue states such as New York threaten to leave as well because the country will move right, and then blue states such as Washington, Illinois, New York threaten to kick out the blue cities such as New York, Seattle and Chicago, turning the states as red as the Deep South.